The City of Los Angeles
delete this line The City Tonight Los Angeles' prosperity has not been shared equally. In a city of $100 sandwiches, where public transport is a joke in poor taste & the median household income is around $50,000 one in five still live below the federal poverty line. The contrasts between the haves and have nots are perhaps the starkest in the country. Privileged neighborhoods lie next to decaying, neglected ghettos. Segregated ethnic enclaves a testament to on-going racial tensions which have lasted for generations and show no signs of abatement. Amidst it all the Danse Macabre whirls on, playing the city's tensions like a discordant harp. For there is only one sure thing in Los Angeles - there are no angels. Recent History Mortal History of Los Angeles First settled by the Tongva and Chumash Native American tribes thousands of years ago, modern day Los Angeles County was conquered by Juan Cabrillo on behalf of the Spanish Empire in 1542 and in 1771 the Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel. In 1781 a group of forty-four settlers, many of them mixed race, founded The Town of Our Lady the Queen of Angels and the town that would become the City of Angels was born. As railroads connected the country in ways never before imagined California became responsible for over a quarter of the world's petroleum production and Los Angeles grew with it. By 1910, the city had annexed Hollywood and by 1921, over eighty percent of the world's film industry was concentrated in LA and the wealth it generated insulated Los Angeles from the effects of the Great Depression allowing its population to surpass one million and host the Summer Olympics in 1932. During the Second World War, Los Angeles became a power house of wartime manufacturing; six of the nation's major aircraft manufacturers headquartered in the city and Terminal Island shipyards constructing hundreds of vessels. The tremendous wealth enabled Los Angeles to grow like never before, sprawling into the San Fernando Valley. Although Los Angeles never instituted statutory segregation, the mass migration of black Americans north to escape Jim Crow largely bypassed the city and it pioneered racially restrictive covenants in real estate. Since the 1920's, and even long after the US Supreme Court declared them illegal, over 95% of all housing in Los Angeles were off-limits to Black and Asian Americans, forcing them into the economically deprived neighborhoods of South and East LA. Minorities were hit especially hard by the Great Depression and many black Americans migrated to the west coast throughout the second World War to take advantage of defense recruitment. In a single generation, Los Angeles' segregated black community grew to over five times its previous size, exceeding 650,000 people by the end of the war. Widespread institutional discrimination fed on-going racial tensions which would ultimately explode in the 1965 Watts Riots. Despite shocking America with their scale and severity the underlying causes were never adequately addressed. Decades later, the same issues were at play in the even more destructive 1992 South Central Riots. In spite of the roiling anger of Los Angeles' deprived and underprivileged the city continued to grow and thrive - the 1984 Olympic games were even more successful than those of 1932, and both have the distinction of being the only summer Olympics to actually turn a profit. The motion picture industry grew by leaps and bounds as Americans found themselves with ever more leisure time, disposable income, and the growing ubiquity of television demanding content that LA was ready to supply. Angelenos are proud of their cosmopolitan city - with residents rejecting seceding Hollywood and San Fernando Valley from the city 2:1 in 2002. Kindred History of Los Angeles Like many of the 'New Cities' of the United States, Kindred have been influential in the development of Los Angeles since its inception: First Prince - Sole Lancea et Sanctum vampire with the original settlers Treaty of Cahuenga - Bernarda Ruiz de Rodriguez (Invictus Elder out of Santa Barbara), saves LA from destruction and brings the city into the US. Invictus influence brings the California railroad to Los Angeles, the resulting influx of people and money enables the Invictus to seize Praxis in a bloodless coup. Establishment of Hollywood's film industry takes place under Carthian leadership via Laemmle family. A power struggle ensues, intensifying with the creation of Universal City. Universal seized by the Invictus in 1936, breaking the Carthian hold over the motion picture industry & imminent wartime manufacturing boom solidifies Invictus power. Carthian movement capitalises on racial tensions, fanning the flames which result in the Watts Riots. Carthians use the widespread chaos to seize Praxis. Invictus prince and several established city elders are presumed destroyed. ARPANET and increased nationwide attention to the sciences allows the Ordo Dracul to emerge as rivals to the Lancea et Sanctum. Lance moves closer to their traditional Invictus allies and the Ordo Dracul counters by forging bonds with the Carthian movement. Carthian Prince of Los Angeles successfully brokers a peace between the long estranged and often warring covenants, the 1984 Olympic Games are a communal effort by the entire city and a symbol of closer cooperation and mutual assistance in the future. Believing that the Prince has essentially joined the establishment and is Carthian in name only, a cabal of influential Carthians instigate a coup under the cover of the 1992 Watts riots. The Prince is killed and denounced as a fallen tyrant. The cabal installs itself as an interim council. They're topped by an alliance of the Invictus, Ordo Dracul and Lancea et Sanctum within weeks and executed. The alliance quickly dissolves - the Primus of the Inner Circle, the Grand Wyrm and the Archbishop all proclaim praxis and the city fragments into violent conflict. The Circle of the Crone identifies the source of the 1994 Northridge earthquake; the intensity of the conflict feeds a demon deep beneath the city which is beginning to awaken and last stirred during the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. With the unanimous support of the Prisci, The Treaty of La Brea is signed by the covenants, bringing an end to open kindred on kindred warfare. Treaty of La Brea By mutual agreement established as Prince of the domain of Los Angeles and mandated that he abdicate the throne at the request of 7/10 of the prisci and primogen councilors. Established a primogen council to advise the Prince and who, by unanimous vote, wields the power of veto over decrees of the Prince.